Woke up this morning, well it's a start

Ah there you go, your expectations are high based on albums you know and love and a previous sighting of their live show. So you sign up for the new tour full of excitement and then what happens? The venue lets you down. Alabama 3 was hotly awaited – you know them, most famous for the Sopranos theme song, creators of some of the finest wordplay in songs and a range of musical styles – acid, country, house music is only the start. Normally fantastic – but no small part of it is that you need to hear what they’re saying/ singing. Sadly at the Cheese & Grain the booming acoustics turned the vocals to sludge. Larry Love’s suggestion that D Wayne Love’s mic should be switched off between songs to avoid offence (none taken) wasn’t necessary because the hall swallowed up all his words and rearranged them into soup. Still, I had heard Larry’s comments so it can’t have been all bad. This acoustic thing can get quite exciting – if you look at the Bellowhead tour blog you’ll see some scandalised comments about the St Albans (I think) show. At the time I just thought it couldn’t make that much difference, everyone can get the mix right and balance it to the hall’s natural acoustics. (For more information look up the Bear’s website [Google Owsley Stanley] which has lots of information on how he used to set up the sound for the Grateful Dead – and they were invariably completely off their faces and still had it sounding good. But I digress.)


Photo by Looby Loo
Anyway, musically the Alabama 3 put on a fine show and gradually cranked up the volume too – it’s been a while since I’ve stood in front of a speaker stack feeling a strong blast of air. Just like those old Maxell adverts they used to have in hi fi mags. Fantastic. All the band did their stuff and, if you knew the lyrics then you knew what was going on. Classics like Hypo Full of Love, U don’t dans 2 tekno, My name’s Johnny Cash (how great is that? Very great). Old stuff and new stuff but good stuff. The light show was clearly designed to flush out any latent epileptics in the crowd but they’re a hardy bunch in Frome so no obvious delirium occurred – or none that required the help of St John’s Ambulance. Thinking of which, why has no live music fan ever signed up for them and so get into every concert free – they never seem to have much to do. Instead it’s always people who are several centuries older than the crowd – although that’s getting harder the longer the old folk go on (ever noticed the fans at some of these things – Van Morrison's are archaic, Pink Floyd's were particularly wretched - and that was over 12 years ago).
And at this point it’s support act time. For this gig in Frome the support act was the Olive Tree just up the road and round the corner. Fine old pub, clean, serves a very nice pint of Courage and also has a good line in thai food. Some slightly wayward interaction with the staff could be put down to country ways – we don’t get down from the hills too often. All of which meant that the support act we were supposed to be seeing we didn’t. I wonder if the acoustics were any better for them.

We're going over the top - hold onto your hats.

So who would have thought, a band that wins the Radio 2 folk award for best live act (quite possibly twice) proves to be a worthy winner. Their show at the Trinity in Bristol was a blistering performance. From the moment they had all managed to get on stage – I counted 11 and there could have been others hidden about although there wasn’t space for them – they laid into a display of music that may loosely be described as folk but travelled all around Europe for its influences. Occasionally there were definitely nods to Three Mustaphas Three (what happened to them?) before veering off elsewhere. The line up comprised pretty much anything that hadn’t been designed to be electric with a strong brass section topped off with sousaphone occupying all the stage right area without falling down the steps – very adept, a selection of fiddles and cello, melodeon (looked like an accordion to me but I’m now wiser), bouzouki, guitar (hey, that’s a normal one), bagpipes, drum kit (another normal one) and endless more that you’ll have to check on their website if you want to know. And all played to great effect to produce a thunderingly good sound.
Anyway, with that line up and vast amounts of energy they stormed through a set of folk songs, dances, reels, probably some jigs and a shanty or two. Napoleon popped up at least once as did tales of hangmen and true love (though not necessarily for the hangman). Dancing was encouraged and led to some fairly deranged attempts – certainly at the back of the hall. Although to suggest that pogoing qualified as a traditional folk dance was possibly going a bit far – but then punk was a very long time ago so maybe it has now legitimately entered the realms of folklore.
If you want a thoroughly good night out whilst getting your exercise in then an evening dancing away to Bellowhead should feature very high on your list. Or to put it another way, my bet is that you won’t see a festival crowd sitting on their collapsible chairs and stuffing their faces whilst this band is onstage. And more good news – they seem to enjoy themselves too.
This place on the page is reserved for the support act and for Bellowhead on this tour you get Chris TT (let’s get the Audi thing out of the way now). Chris seems to take Robyn Hitchcock as his starting point and launches off into the blue yonder – songs featuring hedgehogs, talking trees and civil engineers and bankers. Clearly a man with a sense of outrage and fun (sometimes combined) and some talent too – but nothing you could dance to. That came later.

coming soon - maybe

anyone want to hear about the grateful dead? One of the finest bands that ever roamed the earth although they never had good looking young buck drummers (already in their 20s by the first album and that was ages ago). I could do you reviews of a number of shows they played over the years, you only have to ask.

Van Morrison gets great again

So, one of the wettest summers around and the prospect of Van Morrison playing outdoors. You’d either be a very smug pessimist or an off the register optimist to be viewing that with any enthusiasm. And yet . . .
The man defied all expectations and turned in a stonker of a performance. Now don’t be daft, there was no smiling or audience banter or playing late into the night but clearly there was something going on. Maybe this had something to do with his inspired band which in addition to the usual keyboards, guitar, small brass section also included violin and a selection of slide instruments – dobro, pedal steel and straight electric slide guitar. The connection between all the band and their leader but especially between the pedal steel and violin was something to hear enabling solos from one instrument to continue on with the other fairly seamlessly. Coupled with some interesting oldies – Into the Mystic anyone? – brought the house down. Except it was outdoors and the abbey had already been pulled down several hundred years previously. One particular highlight was the seeming question of “what do you want me to do”? which, before a stunned audience could hit him with requests, turned out to be the instruction to the band for the next song – and very fine it turned out too. As did the weather. Needless to say, for the finale we got a ripping version of Gloria (well there always is one, it’s how you know he’s about to leg it) and then there were fireworks to take our minds off the fact that he wasn’t coming back after that (he never does – so don’t go calling out for Gloria early in a set or you might find yourself short-changed). Fantastic, an addition to the list of Van Morrison shows that you can recall with joy – I have a vague memory his performance at Knebworth back in ‘74 was similarly impressive but we were all younger then

And an honourable mention for Corinne Bailey Rae who did a sterling job of performing whilst everyone stuffed their faces – she deserved better but you can’t interfere with a picnic when the sun’s shining. Those Glastonbury events just keep on getting better. But have you noticed how no-one sits on the ground any more? Time was that you stood up and danced – in a reserved English style or an off your face deranged way (the latter guaranteeing lots of space around you) or you just keeled over on the ground. Ah, the dangerous edge of rock and roll replaced by comfort. Bring on the nurses.